Welcome

Rikky Rooksby is a composer, author, freelance lecturer on literature and music (both popular and classical), guitar teacher and songwriter.

Born in London, Rikky grew up in Essex and St.Ives, Cornwall. He took up the guitar at 13 and wrote his first song two years later. He studied English literature at University College Cardiff, graduating with a B.A. (Hons) and a Ph.D. Throughout his working life Rikky has combined teaching literature and teaching the guitar, and writing about both. He has published many literary articles, reviews and several books, including a biography of the Victorian poet A.C.Swinburne, and is a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Rikky tutors on courses for The Oxford Experience international summer school organized by Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education.

Since 2000 Rikky has written a multi-volume series on songwriting for Backbeat books, and has published over 200 interviews, reviews, articles and transcriptions in music magazines.

He is a member of the Society of Authors, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, the UK Sibelius One Society, The Friends of the English Music Festival, The Friends of Cathedral Music, The Friends of Penlee House (Penzance),  and the John F. Kennedy Library (Boston).

This website includes information about Rikky’s music and books.  Thank you for visiting.